1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the exchange of data between a first electronic device and a second electronic device, and more specifically to the exchange of HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) messages between a web server being implemented by or running on the first electronic device and a web browser running on the second electronic device.
The first electronic device according to the invention a portable device, and the second electronic device according to the invention is external to the portable device. In the main application of the invention, the first electronic or portable device will be an integrated circuit card or smart card, in particular the ones compatible with ISO 7816-4, comprising platforms such as (U)SIM ((U) Subscriber Identification Module), UICC, R-UIM (Removable—User Identification Module) and WIM (Wireless Identification Module), and the second electronic or external device will be a smart card terminal in the form of a mobile telephone. We will use the example of a smart card and a terminal throughout this description. The invention nevertheless can be applied to other cases where e.g. the portable device is a Multi Media Memory card or the external device is a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or a PC (Personal Computer).
2. Background Art
Web servers such as HTTP or HTTPS servers can be embedded in portable devices like smart cards. Resources residing on the smart card can then be accessed via HTTP by an application running on the terminal to which the smart card is connected. Furthermore, since HTTP is designed to transmit hypertext pages, a web browser can be used on the terminal, e.g. as a user interface for smart card applications.
The application layer Internet protocol HTTP is designed to be used over TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) and standard browsers use TCP/IP to transmit HTTP messages. However, for data transmission between a smart card and a terminal, usually other protocols than TCP are used on transport layer level. In particular, current smart card solutions hosting a web server use proprietary protocols for transmission of HTTP messages.